The former president of the Rancho Simi Rotary Club has pleaded guilty to embezzling $9,000 from the service organization, which raises money for various charities, authorities said. Nicholas Wassil, 40, pleaded guilty to one felony count of grand theft by embezzlement during a brief hearing Wednesday in Ventura County Municipal Court. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 11. Wassil faces a maximum of three years in prison. But Deputy Dist. Atty.

Thank you for your coverage of the immunization project at the San Fernando Gardens Housing Project, but your article only tells part of the efforts that have taken place to put this event together. El Proyecto del Barrio is just one of the many members of the San Fernando Valley Unity Coalition that have worked together to make the immunization effort possible. The participating members include the American Red Cross Valley District, Department of Heath Services, Latin American Civic Assn.

Community activists Bea and Ray Gelgur recently received honors from the Anti-Defamation League of Orange County/Long Beach. The league, which held its 16th annual Appeals Brunch on Sunday, honored the Gelgurs for their work in building a stronger and more tolerant society. "It's a very special honor," said Ray Gelgur, who has served on the league's regional board for more than 30 years and was appointed associate national commissioner in 1997.

* The Ventura Friends of the Library will sponsor a used-book sale from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in the Wright Library parking lot, 57 Day Road, Ventura. Proceeds will benefit the Ventura libraries. Information: 659-5103. Salsa Music Festival at Lake Casitas * The California Salsa Music Festival, sponsored by the Ventura-East Rotary Club, will be held from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 28 at Lake Casitas, off Highway 150, outside Ojai.

Immigrants in multicultural Miami had the final word Wednesday in a monthlong battle with Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo: Adios. A speech by Tancredo to the Rotary Club of Miami scheduled for today was canceled after the Key Biscayne restaurant that hosts the group's weekly lunch meetings announced that the congressman critical of immigration was not welcome there.

When Sylvia Whitlock becomes president of the Rotary Club of Duarte next month, she will be the first woman ever to head one of the 20,000 clubs affiliated with Rotary International. The speaker at Whitlock's installation dinner will be Carol Agate of the American Civil Liberties Union, who helped the Duarte club through nine years of legal action that culminated in the Supreme Court decision Monday that allows states to force Rotary International to admit women members.

The venerable Rotary Club of Los Angeles has admitted as its first woman member a socially prominent business leader, Caroline Leonetti Ahmanson, club president Thomas P. Sullivan said Wednesday. Sullivan said two other women "are in the pipeline now" for membership in the Los Angeles organization, the fifth oldest Rotary club in the world. They probably will be admitted to the 700-member downtown club in the next two to three months. He said the club, called "L.A.

The Duarte Ex-Rotary Club can take the "ex" out of its name, at least temporarily. Rotary International has complied with a court order to reinstate the Duarte club, which was expelled in 1978 for allowing women to join in violation of by-laws limiting membership to men. The club was reinstated pending the outcome of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court over whether clubs should be permitted to admit women.

Rotary Clubs from Southern California plan to plant 50,000 to 75,000 trees in Orange County by the end of this year. To kick off the program, Rotary Club officials gathered Wednesday morning on Lukens Mountain in Angeles National Forest to plant several hundred pines and cedars in 2-gallon and 5-gallon containers. The clubs hope to plant 250,000 trees by the end of 1991, said George Grossman, district governor for Rotary Clubs in Orange County.